Taking the crow out of the Roosters at Tom Knight Memorial Oval is widely acknowledged as one of the more difficult assignments in the Castlereagh League competition but the Gulgong Bull Terriers managed to do that on Saturday to claim a 34-20 victory.
The long road trip from Gulgong to Cobar to play the reigning premiers on their home ground proved to be not an insurmountable task for Gulgong and, after nine rounds, the win ensures Gulgong still sits alone and undefeated at the top of the Christie and Hood Castlereagh League competition.
Saturday’s match was disappointingly full of errors and penalties as the two sides sought to gain dominance over each other.
It wasn’t until the late stages of the game that Gulgong managed to take the ascendancy and ultimately claim the win.
The Roosters knew it was going to be a big game on Saturday and they put plenty of pressure on the Bull Terriers from the outset.
For a short time they had the visitors on the back foot but they soon regathered and Gulgong was first to score at the 10 minute mark when they muscled over for a converted try to take a 6-0 lead.
The Roosters kept on pecking away looking for holes in Gulgong’s defence and eventually it was patient set play that resulted in their first points.
Cobar vigorously attacked the right hand side corner and the Gulgong line drifted across in cover defence. The Roosters then sent the ball wide to the opposite wing for their left Centre Jack Brown to score from a speedy strike run.
Roosters captain/coach Tom Plater landed the sideline conversion to lock the scores up at 6-all midway through the first half.
The slick move by the Roosters surprised the Bull Terriers but it also served to fire them up.
They then scored back-to-back converted tries to push their lead out to 18-6.
Brown’s second try, a copy-cat of his first, just before half-time closed the margin to
18-10 before they went to the break.
Soon after the re-start young Winger Jayden Paul crossed for Cobar to bring the difference back to four points, 18-14.
Gulgong added another before Roosters’ hard man, Zane Taylor, crossed and Plater’s conversion closed the margin to just two points at 22-20.
Uncomfortable with such a narrow lead, Gulgong fired up again and their front rower Blake Gorrie crossed for his third try of the match. The conversion gave them a 28-20 lead.
End to end play ensued as both sides tried to improve the scoreline.
Gulgong scored the final try of the match after taking advantage of a gap created by over-exuberant defence by a Roosters player on their line and the conversion saw them through to a 34-20 win.
The Roosters are at home this Saturday to Coonamble while Cobar’s Reserve Graders host Gilgandra for their first game of the season.
